TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese driver, afraid of having to take a breath-test, fled a police drink-driving checkpoint even though he was well under the legal alcohol limit, but ended up crashing his car.

The 44-year-old man drove through the checkpoint on a road in the western Japanese city of Ikeda late Wednesday. Pursuing police officers found the car about half a mile away, upside down in a dry riverbed below the road.

The driver, who suffered light injuries to his legs, was sitting beside the vehicle.

"I'd been drinking, so I fled," the Mainichi newspaper quoted the man as telling police.

A spokesman for the Osaka prefectural police said the man was not in breach of drunk-driving laws and they were treating the case as a simple traffic accident.